The Windows edition of Dead Island is now available in North America, offering Techland's zombie-themed action/RPG. The game is available in stores and also via digital distribution on GamersGate, Impulse, and Steam. Apparently a day-on patch is on the way, Destructoid has word on that along with a lengthy list of changes the patch will include. There's also a thread on the Steam Users' Forums stating the version available on Steam is actually an Xbox 360 build of the game based on header information calling this an "Xbox Live Submission Project Version." Eurogamer has word from Techland that they are looking into this: "Techland is currently investigating this information and we'll do everything we can to make sure everyone can enjoy playing their copy of Dead Island," a spokesperson told them. "Deep Silver is a part of every release process and any further updates will come from the game's publisher."

First...I don't know how it went from the obvious last night, being it was a dev build released on Steam, to waking up this morning to news spreading like wildfire that it's an xbox build. To anyone that was gullible enough to have actually believed this...what Xbox game do you know of that has keyboard rebinding, mouse controls and video options beyond just a gamma slider?

Talking gameplay rather than the list of issues...

Bottles of Alcohol are a repeatable quest item, and I'm guessing once you get the plans to make Molotov's, they will be used for that as well (why I think they take a weapon slot). Alcohol while it does take a weapon inventory slot, they do stack. I had 8 bottles at one point last night. Ate a weapon? Didn't have that happen last night. If you held the Use button too long, it will drop whatever you are holding and replace it with what you picked up.

Respawns...the game would be pretty damn boring if there weren't respawns, not to mention it would severely cut into the amount of XP. This is NOT a single player game. It's not meant to go linearly through the game and once killed, things stay dead. That would be pretty damn lame for 4 player coop to kill everything in an area and never have to kill another zombie. However, justifying it is pretty easy...some zombies wander, they wandered in from another area. What is annoying is when they happen to respawn right on top of you. PS: materials and weapons respawn too.

Items degrading quickly...it is quite fast, it's a little annoying. I'm going to withhold judgement until later in the game, as I suspect better weapons will have better durability. Weapons can also be upgraded, improving their durability. There are also passive skills to increase durability. I had already unlocked 4 weapon slots, very simple to toggle between them, open with a throwing weapon or two, toggle to your melee weapons. Rinse repeat. There are tons and tons of weapons available at any given time, and most people will not have even seen many of the various weapon plans.

Normal saves? With this being a coop game, "normal saves" will not work. If you are going to play solo, then you have to deal with it. I don't see the problem though considering it starts you at the nearest checkpoint, with everything respawned (ie: Borderlands).

Technical issues...too many to list.

Vsync can be added to the video.src (open with Notepad), among other changes.